Two weeks ago the Coalition for the Homeless announced that the number of people who experience homelessness at any point-in-time in Houston is lower by 37% since 2011. This continuing decline in the number of people who are living on the streets or in emergency shelters is a testament to the changing approach within our community. What’s different? We are 1) engaging in strong private, local, and Federal partnerships and taking strategic actions to maximize all of our resources, 2) increasing evidence-based housing and services models like permanent supportive housing, and 3) focusing on outcomes. With these factors working together, solving homelessness is possible and within reach.

While still a work in process, Houston has become a model city in ending homelessness. The Mayor’s special assistant on homelessness, Mandy Chapman Semple, has been sharing the story nationally. In an expert brief she provided to a council of Cabinet and leaders from 19 Federal agencies who met to take action on Federal efforts to support and advance progress on ending homelessness in local communities, Chapman Semple notes that “Healthcare, mental health treatment, substance abuse, employment, education and economic growth are rarely optimized without adequate housing. However, responses across these sectors often do not recognize their inter-dependence. Houston’s success is the result of understanding the connections between these systems and creating a framework to define when systems can operate in parallel and when they must intersect and interweave.”

SEARCH is on the front lines leading client engagement, influencing local change efforts, and witnessing successes. The “60 minutes” news show shared on their website “before and after” photos of individuals who’d benefited from the 100,000 Homes campaign, a national effort to house 100,000 chronically homeless individuals throughout the country. Here’s an update on the couple from Houston, Deborah and Robert, former SEARCH clients:

They are doing great! Their health is good. They have only been going to their doctors, no ER visits. They are excited that they just signed another year lease. They do have two new additions to their family, cats named “Toast” and “Midnight”.

Robert shared, “In the beginning, when we first moved here, we weren’t sure that it was going to work out, if we would fit in in this apartment complex. But it turns out, we really like a lot of the people here and we know a lot of the neighbors. We still stay connected with some of our friends that are still on the street and try to help them out when we can. We were with these people for a long time. You know, at the end of this year’s lease we will have been inside almost as long as we were outside. We are happy.”

At the start of SEARCH’s work, we were happy with being able to change one life at a time. With hard AND smart work, SEARCH and our community partners are changing thousands of lives at a time.

Mayor Annise Parker recently announced that the number of homeless persons found on any given day in Downtown Houston has reduced by half since 2012 from 1,060 to 529 in 2014. The Coalition for the Homeless will soon release numbers that will reflect the entire county’s census of people who are homeless. This initial peek of an area that has the highest concentration of people living on the street is a reflection of the significant progress we’ve made as a community over the past two years. With the community’s goals to end chronic and veteran homelessness before 2016, public and private sector partners are working diligently to:

Develop a service delivery mechanism that’s targeted at more than helping people manage crises, but at truly ending homelessness.

Develop a standardized assessment and housing placement system to prioritize the most vulnerable individuals and maximize resources.

Because of SEARCH’s experience with homelessness over the past 25 years and our focus on skilled case management that facilitate behavior change, we’ve been instrumental in helping individuals move from the streets, into jobs, and safe, stable housing. We’ve also been a key partner and leader in the community’s efforts to implement the work outlined above.

With the Mayor’s political will, our community coming together to do business differently, and the expertise SEARCH is providing, ending street homelessness is within reach. It’s an exciting time for SEARCH, our clients, and our city. Thank you for being part of our important work.

The holiday season is a time to share our gifts of friendship and thoughtful treats. It’s also a great time to involve our children and help them understand the challenges that many face.

Can you make it on $1,000/month? I invite you to take the challenge through SPENT, an online game used to raise awareness of poverty and homelessness that was created by Urban Ministries of Durham. I must admit, I didn’t make it past day 10. Give it a try and let me know how well you do!

Being so grateful for all that God has given me, I have always had a heart for those Jesus identified in Matthew 25:33-40 as the least of these brothers: those in need of food, clothing, companionship, and compassion. Back in 2009, having just completed a board position with one of our local mission partners, I was looking for a new place to serve. Although I didn’t know it at the time, Gilly Brooks, who’d relocated to Houston from Perth, Australia, had felt “a heavenly nudge” to reach out to the homeless population in her new city. So when MDPC’s Outreach Ministries posted an article asking for volunteers to work with their long-time mission partner SEARCH Homeless Services, we both recognized it as the opportunity the Lord was providing for us.
We made our first monthly visit to SEARCH on December 2, 2009, and have continued to recruit church members, family, and friends to work with us ever since. The core group that now joins us each month includes Fran Bossert, Judy Ebling, Carol Hewell, and Mary Gwen Hulsey.

SEARCH was founded with the idea that families need more than a meal or a place to sleep. They offer many services designed to get people who are homeless back on their feet as productive citizens. To fuel the work of rebuilding their lives, our MDPC team concentrates on preparing and feeding hot, nutritious meals to hungry clients. Wearing our BLESS caps, we greet them with a smile, offering kindness and dignity as they find a little respite from life on the street. Sometimes our work is behind the scenes in the kitchen under the guidance of kitchen director Billy Roberson. We also try to bring a little fun and diversion to the morning by playing Bingo in the dining room with anyone who wants to join in. Everybody hopes to win a prize; things we take for granted, like new socks, a sweatshirt, or snacks, are so appreciated by these men and women who have so little. Win or lose, they all forget their troubles for a while and ask when we’ll be playing again.

The nice thing about volunteering at SEARCH is that, not only do we feel we’ve made a difference in the lives of hungry Houstonians and had a good time in the process, we help our mission partner SEARCH conserve funds for life-changing programs instead of hiring extra kitchen workers.

Grandparents, make a huge impact on the lives of grandchildren. Through hands on experiences, meaningful conversation or by just hanging out together, you pass on your own values and learn about those coveted by the next generation. These interactions ensure your legacy lives on.

If you are a grandparent with adoring children in your lives, here are ten creative ways you can teach your children (of all ages) to give back.

Give your adult children a day off and bring your grandchildren to a musical. Explain how important theater arts is in our community.

Take your grandchildren on a field trip to the SPCA and explain why it’s important to adopt a pet.

Tell your family that philanthropy is important to you and explain why.

Invite your grandchildren to your home and make sack lunches to donate to SEARCH.

Take your granddaughter on a walk in the arboretum and talk about why it’s important to conserve the environment.

Spend Thanksgiving with your whole family by serving lunch to people in need.

Ask your teenage grandchildren about issues that are important to them and how they, and you, can volunteer to support that cause.

Set up a family foundation and, as a family, talk about how to allocate dollars in our community.

Make a financial contribution in honor of your grandchild to a cause that is important to them. Then tell them you did it and why.

Give your grandson a $10 bill and talk about where and why he might like to donate the gift.

It’s hard to define that extra special bond between grandparents and grandchildren. For many, it’s an indescribable connection and feeling: grandparents want to give and love; grandchildren to adore and respect. It’s the perfect synergy of mutual and unbending admiration. Together, grandchildren with their grandparents can change our world.

For more information about inter-generational philanthropy, contact Lisa Estes, Director of Development at lestes@searchhomeless.org or 713-276-3065.

The homelessness topic can be frightening to young children and intimidating for parents to explain. We see people on the streets, they may be dirty and many have serious mental illness. We struggle, ourselves, to understand what to do. Yet, we need to respond to our children’s questions about what they see, because we want to teach them that it is not alright to look past other human being’s suffering.

By developing honest, direct and age appropriate answers, we cultivate compassion in our children. By acknowledging that homelessness is sad and sometimes scary even to grown-ups, we show our children that, even though we don’t always have the answers, we want to be part of finding the solution. By having conversations with them, we empower them to be part of the solution with us. We live our personal values by acknowledging the existence of those among us who are different, who are in pain, who are homeless. Because they are not nameless. They are homeless.